


throw it in their teeth

by valonqarth



Series: everything alive again [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Gen, Same-Sex Daemons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 07:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2764817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valonqarth/pseuds/valonqarth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A memory surfaced in Gendry’s mind, one distant and fuzzy as if only lit by dim candlelight. Soft and soothing, he remembered, a voice had told him a daemon the same as him was a sign that he was special and important, not that he was a freak. <br/>He remembered yellow hair cascading around him as the woman leant over him and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead before singing him a lullaby as he fell asleep. <br/>He remembered the feeling of the woman’s dog daemon nuzzling gently against Minoa, curled up at Gendry’s feet in his first form, a fawn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	throw it in their teeth

The heat of the forge pressed all around him. After the years of working every day in this encompassing warmth it was almost comforting rather than overbearing like the patrons to Tobho Mott’s forge often found it, wishing to come and go as quickly as possible. The midsummer heat made folk move slower and people welcomed the relief as they strode alongside daemons under the cool shadow of the Red Keep. Most people remembered all too well the previous winter and didn’t dare wish away the heat of summer.

Gendry was two and ten, nearly a man grown. He had grown much bigger than the scrawny boy delivered to the forge at the age of five. He towered over the other apprentices in the Street of Steel, but hadn’t quite grown into his size making him appear smaller than he was. Quick-tempered but not unkind, with his daemon Minoa constantly at his heels.

Today, as he had been for a while, his daemon was a dog.  Fur as black as the coal of the forge fires with eyes blue like Gendry’s. A quiet thing, but quick to bark at passersby that irritated him. His daemon was just as irritable as he was, easy to anger over the slightest thing. Gendry and Minoa were alike in every way, quick tempered and stubborn.

“Minoa, stop it. Tobho has warned us about scaring away customers.”

Minoa looked up at him for a second before turning away and continuing his watch over Visenya’s Hill.

“Stubborn as an ox,” Mott used to tell him, and the other boys had laughed.

“I thought dogs were supposed to be obedient,” Gendry muttered.

“I thought you were supposed to be fixing that breastplate,” Minoa replied.

Gendry huffed and continued beating the steel.

Minoa had kept this form for the two moons leaving the young apprentice to accept that his daemon may have settled. A dog. The most common of all daemons.

 

The other boys sometimes called Gendry a freak. His daemon, unlike all of the other boys he shared his room with, was male just like him.

A memory surfaced in Gendry’s mind, one distant and fuzzy as if only lit by candlelight. Soft and soothing, he remembered, a voice had told him a daemon the same as him was a sign that he was special and important, not that he was a freak. He remembered yellow hair cascading around him as the woman leant over him and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead before singing him a lullaby as he fell asleep. He remembered the feeling of the woman’s dog daemon nuzzling gently against Minoa, curled up at Gendry’s feet in his first form, a fawn.

Gendry shook his head. His mother was dead long ago. How could the memory have been real if he couldn’t even remember his mother’s face?

He continued to hammer on steel. Smithing was good. A release. With a hammer in his hand and his daemon at his side, Gendry was content. He tried not to let his mother’s words plague him, but they nagged at the back of his mind all day. He was nothing special; he was a lowborn bastard. He’d been told as much, many times by the other boys. Older than him, better smiths than him, higher birth than him.

For years he’d wished he wasn’t what he was. A highborn lord, maybe. But those were childish dreams, he told himself. Dreams of a green boy.

He’d seen the cruelty of highborns. How could he not have, living in the capital? Lords and ladies sending squires to do everything for them. He’d seen them walking sometimes, through the street like they would rather die than look at him even their daemons giving off an air of nobility Gendry would never have. Even the King had paid him no notice at all, that day by the Mud Gate all those years ago.

Gendry sighed and put down his hammer. It was time for the boys’ break. Slowly the apprentices trickled out of the forge and into the alley behind it, the heat of the summers day slowing their movements.

“You there,” a voice called, “bullhead bastard.”

Gendry scowled, turning to face his tormentor. The boy was older than him, but thankfully not bigger. Many boys had tried to bully Gendry over the years, digging into the things about himself they knew he disliked. A few of them had tried to hurt him physically, but that had happened less and less as they saw the muscles in his arms grow into his previously ill-fitting jerkin.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to pull faces like that? Do that too much and your face will be stuck like that until next winter,” the boy, Carn, sneered. His daemon, a mongrel, growled at Minoa who raised himself up to his full height up to the other dog. The other boys of the forge gathered around to see the entertainment as if they were smallfolk at a tourney, their canine daemons backing up Carn’s mutt instinctively.

Carn’s words stung, with the memory of his mother still fresh in his mind. Gendry schooled his expression to a neutral one, having learned to ignore their taunts. Starting a fight with another boy would be a sure way to get him thrown out of the forge, he was sure of it. Tobho Mott had taken a chance in giving him a place here. He must have felt kind one day, letting a poor lowborn orphan into his shop. He wouldn’t want to disappoint his master.

“Some lowborn bastard fucked her, and what was she left with? Just you? A bullheaded bastard boy. I bet she’s glad to be dead.”

Rage flared at in Gendry’s chest, like the bellows he knew so well. He opened his mouth to retaliate, but stopped before he could say a word.

Minoa snarled as Carn’s mutt started towards him. He shuddered and in an instant transformed into a monstrous bull. He charged at the gathered daemons, scattering them with a huff. The distraction was enough for Gendry, who raised his fist and threw it down in Carn’s face. The strength of the blow was enough to split the boys lip and blood welled at the cut.

Gendry, as strong as he was, was only twelve and had never actually hit someone so hard in his life. His hand fucking hurt. He didn’t care, because Carn ran from the alleyway clutching a hand to his mouth and spitting a tooth into the rushes on the floor.

The other boys had run too, their daemons frightened and their entertainment over.

Gendry patted Minoa on the head, his bull form much taller than he had been as a dog. He smiled at his daemon.

“You mean to make me look even more bullheaded than ever before, Mino,” he laughed. “Come on, they’re gone now. You can change back if you want.”

Minoa just huffed, shaking his head. “I like it like this,” he said.

“Fine, for now.”

It was difficult to work in the forge with a great bull standing in the way and after a while Tobho had asked him to “leave that great cow outside.” Gendry had been reluctant, but after the fight with Carn Gendry had not been willing to go against his master who had so kindly turned a blind eye.

The distance made Gendry more irritable. It nagged at him like an itch, an invisible wire tugging between Gendry and Minoa as the distance increased. Minoa kept trying to come back into the forge and kept getting pushed out by Gendry. Minoas reappearances distracted Gendry from his work, as no one else could touch him to guide him out of the shop.

“Stubborn bull,” Tobho Mott said again, though now it was more true than ever.

"He'll change back soon," he said. "Just a stubborn beast, is all."

 

That night in the apprentice boys sleeping quarters no one said a word to Gendry. The silence was welcome after a long while of taunting. He could tell that now they feared him and he didn't mind at all.

Gendry patted Minoa on the neck.

"It's a bullheaded bastard boy they wanted so a bullheaded bastard boy they'll be getting, I reckon."

When he went to sleep Minoa tried to curl up on his feet the same as every other night. Gendry shoved his daemon off him with a smile. "You'll break m'legs, you brute."

It was a squeeze, boy and bull together in the tiny cot. Half of Gendry hoped that Minoa would change back by the time he awoke, but was pleased when he never did.

 


End file.
